A Bradford film fan will be seeing stars when he heads for the Bollywood hills tomorrow.

Irfan Ajeeb, who organises Bradford's Bite The Mango film festival, is flying out to the Indian film capital to help build links that will bring more of the industry's top film stars to Yorkshire.

Irfan said that Bradford is becoming a major name in the Asian film industry and hopes his visit would help tempt some of the industry's biggest stars to the city.

He said: "An example of the stars we're trying to attract over here is Amitabh Bachchan who came to Bite The Mango last year.

"I met him when I went to Bollywood last year and I stayed at his house for a few days, which was quite nice, to put it mildly!

"He hosts Who Wants To Be A Millionaire over there and he's the first Asian movie star to be included in the Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, so he's an absolutely huge star."

Irfan, who works at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, said: "India has the biggest film industry in the world but I've found that Bradford's profile is really rising over there.

"When you say you're from the National Museum it really opens doors for you."

One of the Bollywood celebrities Irfan will be meeting during his three-week tour is director Mahesh Bhatt, who is the Asian Film industry's equivalent to Steven Spielberg.

He is also looking forward to meeting former Miss World Aishwarya Rai, one of the biggest Bollywood stars.

As well as India, Irfan will spend a week making contacts in Pakistan's film capital Lahore, which is known in the industry as Lollywood.

He said: "Hopefully, meeting these people will increase our chances of getting them to Bradford. I want to break the tradition of stars only coming to places like London.

"I want to see Bite The Mango up there with all the major films festivals like Cannes and Berlin - and I think in ten years we might manage it."

The growing popularity of Bollywood films was witnessed in Bradford last week when the biggest Asian blockbuster of all time Mohabbatein -- which translates as Love Stories -- opened at Bradford's Odeon Cinema.

Large queues formed to see the movie which stars Shahrukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan, India's answer to Robert De Niro and Brad Pitt.